Scientific Highlights
Amyloid-polysaccharide interfacial coacervates as therapeutic materials
Coacervation via liquid-liquid phase separation provides an excellent oppor- tunity to address the challenges of designing nanostructured biomaterials with multiple functionalities. Protein-polysaccharide coacervates, in particular, offer an appealing strategy to target biomaterial scaffolds, but these systems suffer from the low mechanical and chemical stabilities of protein-based condensates. Here we overcome these limitations by transforming native proteins into amyloid fibrils and demonstrate ...
Mobility of Dissolved Gases in Smectite under Saturated Conditions
Mobility of water, sodium and gas molecules within a smectite nanopore
Various gases are produced by metal corrosion and organic material degradation in deep gelological repository for nuclear waste. To ensure repository safety, it's important to demonstrate that gases can be dissipated by diffusion in host rocks and prevent pressure buildup in repository near field. Smectite mineral particles form a pore network that is usually saturated with water, making gas diffusion the primary transport mechanism. Molecular simulations have shown that the diffusion of gases through the pore network depends on various factors, including pore size and temperature. For instance, smaller pores and lower temperatures tend to reduce gas diffusion. Interestingly, hydrogen and helium have been found to diffuse faster than argon, carbon dioxide, and methane, possibly due to interactions with the clay surface and water molecules. Ultimately, the diffusion coefficients for different gases and pore sizes can be predicted using an empirical relationship, which is useful for macroscopic simulations of gas transport.
The Hercules School visits PSI
20 international students visited PSI as part of the renowned Hercules School to learn about our state-of-the-art techniques and methodologies at our large scale facilities.
Latest Version of "Mobiltool" Released
How do you get from A to B in the most environmentally friendly way? This question can now be answered quite easily with the latest version of the "mobitool". Read the article to learn more.
Towards Next Generation Membranes for Polymer Electrolyte Water Electrolysis
The conversion efficiency for green hydrogen production in a polymer electrolyte water electrolyzer (PEWE) is strongly influenced by the ohmic cell resistance and therefore the thickness of the membrane. The use of thin membranes (~50 micron or below) is limited by gas crossover of H2 and O2, which can lead to the formation of an explosive gas mixture. The incorporation of a Pt recombination catalyst provides remedy and allows a more dynamic operating mode (cf. Highlight 03/2022). However, the presence of Pt nanoparticles leads to an increase in the rate of membrane degradation. Therefore, we have additionally doped the membrane with cerium-zirconium-oxide (CZO) nanoparticles, which act as radical scavenger. The rate of membrane degradation can thus be reduced.
Approximate Computing for Nuclear Reactor Simulations
During the last decades, computing power has been subject to tremendous progress due to the shrinking of transistor size as predicted by Moore’s law. However, as we approach the physical limits of this scaling, alternative techniques have to be deployed to increase computing performance. In this regard, the next big advance is envisioned to be the usage of approximate computing hardware based on field-programmable gate arrays and/or digital-analogue in-memory circuits. Such approximate computing can provide disproportional gain (x1000) in energy efficiency and/or execution time for acceptable loss of simulation accuracy. This could be highly beneficial in order to accelerate computational intensive simulations such as reactor core analyses with higher resolution multi-physics models. On the other hand, the execution of programming codes on low-precision hardware may result in inadequate outcomes due to quality degradation and/or algorithm divergence. To address these questions, studies on the stability and the performance of advanced reactor simulation algorithms as function of reduced floating-point arithmetic precision are being conducted at the laboratory for reactor physics and thermal-hydraulics. Results obtained so far indicate a large room for the acceleration of nuclear engineering applications using mixed-precision hardware. Therefore, research is now being enlarged towards assessing multiprecision computing methods for reactor core simulations with higher spatial resolution.
Muonic X-rays peer into brooch from Roman city
Using Muon Induced X-ray Emission, researchers could reveal the inner composition of a knob-bow fibula, excavated at Augusta Raurica in northern Switzerland.
A practical guide to pulsed laser deposition
Nanoscale thin films are widely implemented across a plethora of technological and scientific areas, and form the basis for many advancements that have driven human progress, owing to the high degree of functional tunability based on the chemical composition. Pulsed laser deposition is one of the multiple physical vapour deposition routes to fabricate thin films, employing laser energy to eject material from a target in the form of a plasma ...
Activity Trend Origin of Ethanol Oxidative Dehydrogenation over VOx/CeO2
Using operando time-resolved X-ray absorption spectroscopy, we investigated the origin of volcano-shaped ethanol oxidative dehydrogenation activity trend of VOx/CeO2 catalysts as a function of VOx surface coverage. Vanadium and cerium synergistically change their oxidation states during the catalytic cycle. The catalytic activity correlates with the concentration of reversible Ce4+/3+species.
Integration of Li4Ti5O12 crystalline films on silicon towards high-rate performance lithionic devices
The growth of crystalline Li-based oxide thin films on silicon substrates is essential for the integration of next-generation solid-state lithionic and electronic devices. In this work, we employ a 2 nm γ-Al2O3 buffer layer on Si substrates in order to grow high quality crystalline thin films Li4Ti5O12 (LTO). Long-term galvanostatic cycling of 50 nm LTO demonstrates exceptional electrochemical performance, specific capacity of 175 mAh g-1 and 56 mAh g-1 at 100C and 5000C respectively, with a capacity retention of 91% after 5000 cycles.